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Short Film Fridays: Mamá

I am putting together a larger post right now of the films of 2013 I am most looking forward to, but in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to share a short film that was made back in 2008 that has since been turned into a full-length feature film.

Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite film makers of today. His films are full of imagination and child-like wonderment and that carries over to his horror stories as well. He subscribes to the same philosophy of story-telling as the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson where the world is not sugar-coated, children are in peril, and evil is true. That sense of dread is then combined with monsters of a Lovecraftian dimension, often presenting themselves as otherworldly and full of creativity in their design.

Watching the short then, it is clear how it grabbed him, and set him on the path of turning Mamá into a full-length feature. It is scary and yet it has those little components that only someone who understands how children think and feel would include. Like how the little girl goes back for her fish before walking down the stairs. It is made by a brother-sister team: Andres and Barbara Muschietti, the latter directing the feature film and both serving as writers.

I look forward to seeing how this short is translated into something over 90 minutes. The trailer has the children being rescued from the Wild, and forced to live with their uncle and aunt (Jessica Chastain), which has the potential be an interesting narrative, but I kind of liked the more innocent and domestic feel of the short.

Here are the two trailers for the film version for those who have not seen them already. Mama, the film, comes out January 18th.